Are You Safe In My Heart and Mind?
Sermon from Church Unity Sunday, January 23, 2005
1. Good Morning. Let’s Pray – O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2.
Opening
Remarks: Well this is a very unique
Sunday – Roman Catholics all over the world are celebrating Church Unity Sunday
today but it’s also “Pro-Life Sunday” in the C.E.C. calendar. God has given us Scripture verses today
that focus on unity in the Church and He gave us an opportunity to financially
support Mike Warren and his pro-life ministry here in
So this morning we’re going to pray for the Pro-Life ministry
and Pro-Life leaders like Mike Warren and
3. Focusing in on “unity:” So what does God want to say to us this morning about “Unity” – a subject which is so very very close to His heart!
Listen to Jesus’ prayer:
John 17:22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they
be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have
loved them even as you have loved me.
God incarnate is praying here that you and I and all of His followers would be in complete unity – just as Christ is one with His Father. Their heavenly unity is our model and goal.
Unity – is this an impossible dream?
God incarnate prayed for it and by His Spirit has been working towards it ever since!
In our Epistle reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church we read:
1Cor. 1:10 I
appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you
agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you
may be perfectly united in mind and thought.
11 My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that
there are quarrels among you. 12
What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”;
another, “I follow Cephas”;
still another, “I follow Christ.” 13
Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name
of Paul? (and jumping forward to verse 17) . . . 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but
to preach the gospel — not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ
be emptied of its power.
Listen to Eugene Peterson’s translation of these verses in “The Message:”
1Cor. 1:10 I
have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of
Jesus, our Master. I’ll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with
each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life
in common. 11 I bring this up because some from Chloe’s family brought a
most disturbing report to my attention—that you’re fighting among
yourselves! 12 I’ll tell you
exactly what I was told: You’re all picking sides, going around saying, “I’m on
Paul’s side,” or “I’m for Apollos,” or “Peter is my
man,” or “I’m in the Messiah group.” 13 I ask you, “Has the Messiah been
chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul
crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul’s name?” . . . . 17
God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the
Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn’t send
me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at
the center—Christ on the Cross—be trivialized into mere words.
Hmmmm . . . Paul is urging or appealing to his listeners to put aside their differences and to come together in love.
The Greek word “parakale÷w” means to
ask for earnestly, to request, to plead for, to appeal
for. Paul is quite emphatic in this appeal – He’s clearly disturbed by the
reports that the unity of the Corinthian church was being fractured by internicene back-bighting and he was calling them to renew
their commitment to unity.
Listen to his emphatic call: The New Jerusalem Bible puts it very well
this way:
1Cor. 1:10 Brothers, I
urge you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, not to have factions among
yourselves but all to be in agreement in what you profess; so that you are
perfectly united in your beliefs and judgments.
This focus upon unity is after all at the very heart of our mission here at TCC – Remember our stated mission – “Unifying Christian around Christ’s Table .” This is our raison de tre - our very reason for existence!
4. So what does God want to show us this morning
to focus and in some sense better equip us for this most noble of
all goals?
Let me ask us a question to focus our hearts and minds as we launch out on this reflection:
“How
safe am I in your heart and mind?”
What am I getting at here? This is a question that you could legitimately ask of me as your Priest – your “Father in the Faith” – “How safe am I in your mind and heart – Father Robert? How kindly do you think of me even when I’m not so nice – even when I screw up – even when I sin – how kindly do you think of me – how tender is your heart towards me no matter what?
I was visiting the Abbey this last week and I ran this idea by Fr. Jerome and he reminded me that this is not my question of you given my spiritual calling.
I am what is referred to as “in persona Christi” – in the Person of Christ. And given this position it’s not my right to expect or demand anything from you – rather my calling is to love first, and then to teach and disciple. My calling is to love and serve you with no expectations – no demands.
And in a real sense I countered – this too is really the calling of us all - for we’re all members of the holy priesthood” (1Peter 2:5) – we are member of the Priesthood of all Believers!
But I wrestled him a bit on this question and I got his agreement that it’s still quite legitimate to “encourage” – to “appeal” as Paul is doing in this letter to those who follow Jesus Christ to make their hearts and minds safe places for all! In other words, it would be a wonderful gift to each other if we could know that we’re all safe in each others minds and hearts!
Let me ask you the question – “How safe is anyone in your heart and in your mind?” “Do you work at thinking good thoughts about me and others?” Or, is it more often true that your thoughts about others is dictated by how they treat you at any given time?
And when someone hurts you or disturbs your comfort are you most unkind in your thinking about them?
When you are perhaps more often than not super critical of others? Do you find yourself quickly showing your disdain for others when they mess up? Do you display this publicly or do you just keep it to yourself?
How safe are others around you in your
thoughts and in your heart?
5. My own reflections on this question: As I asked this question of myself, God revealed things to me in the past that I didn’t like looking at.
He took me back to situations in my life when my thoughts about certain people were much less than charitable – certainly not kind. These people weren’t “safe” in my heart or mind. My thoughts of them were not charitable – not loving – not the thoughts of a loving spiritual father – not the thoughts of a loving friend!
I spent quite some time reliving those situations and asking God for His forgiveness over each and every one and seeking to find in each unique situation His loving charity towards them and in so doing I hoped to reform my mind and heart to becoming a safer place for all in the future.
We must never forget that self-denial
is at the end of all of our journeys and humility is the key virtue in making
this most critical journey.
A quote from Jeremy Taylor’s book “Holy
Living” comes immediately to mind when we talk about the humble disposition:
“For the humble man will not judge his brother for the mote in his eye, being more troubled at the beam in his own eye; and is patient and glad to be reproved, because himself hath cast the first stone at himself, and therefore wonders not that others are of his minde.”
Yes, the humble man is more troubled at the beam in his own eye than the splinter in someone else’s eye and is very patient and indeed is glad when someone reproves him for it – why? Because he, himself, has already reproved himself for it and is not amazed or offended at all when someone else sees it and agrees with his assessment of himself! – This is a humble man!
But how “unhumble” I am – how about you? How quickly I find my mind running to justify my mistakes – my sins – my beams! How quickly I run to take offense at a slight by someone! O wretched man that I am!
O Lord keep burning away the arrogance and pride in my life so that more and more people can be safe in my heart and in my mind! Amen and Amen!
So now we turn to the final verse in our
Epistle reading – verse 17. Look with me
at it will you?
1Cor. 1:17 For Christ did not send me to
baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross
of Christ be emptied of its power.
Ah! Lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power!
Did you hear that?
O how I empty the cross when I claim my rights – when I claim I’m being victimized! When I roll my eyes to another at someone else’s expense!
When we do this we empty Christ’s cross of power! We act as if the cross were not! As if the cross – self-denial - were not the way of God!
6.
So what is God saying to each and every one of us this morning? That we must become a safe
haven – a sanctuary to all about us especially to our brother and sister
Christians.
And as this becomes more and more a reality in us and in our community we will discover more and more people wanting to join us and rest in the sanctuary of our presence and rest in the sanctuary which has become the very environment of TCC.
O Lord, may this be true in all of our lives! Amen and Amen!
Let’s Pray . . .